So Long, Literary Giants! Iran Revamps Its Textbooks

Omar Khayyam is considered a giant of Persian poetry. His poems have been part
of Iran's school curriculum for years. Yet students will reportedly no longer be
able to read his rubaiyat in textbooks under a new plan.

Khayyam's verses from the 11th and 12th centuries -- which have been translated
into more than a dozen languages -- are among the works by top literary and
poetry figures that have been removed from the country's textbooks, domestic
media report, confirming a list that has been making the rounds on social media.

Students are instead likely to learn about the life of an Iranian fighter killed
in Syria, where the Islamic republic has helped prop up Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad's regime during the country's eight-year civil war.

The changes have triggered widespread criticism, prompting Education Minister
Mohsen Haji Mirzaie to say
the issue will be subjected to a "fair and expert" review.

Textbooks have been changed several times in Iran since the 1979 revolution and
the creation of an Islamic republic to include religious discourse and promote
revolutionary, Islamic values among youth.

Officials have suggested that the recently reported changes are part of an
effort to bring the textbooks in line with the clerical establishment's
education policies, including the Fundamental
Reform Document Of Education, adopted in 2011, that says the country needs
an "education system capable of materializing [the ideal Islamic life],
universal justice, and Islamic-Iranian civilization."

A poem by Houshang Ebtehaj, a prominent poet who spent time in jail after the
1979 Islamic Revolution; two poems by Nima Youshij, who launched Iran's new
poetry movement; and short stories by at least two influential writers/novelists
are among the works targeted for removal, according to Iranian media reports.

Iranian poet Houshang Ebtehaj (file photo)

In addition, the reports say the name of prominent writer Mahmud Dowlatabadi,
and Morteza Moshfegh Kazemi, the author of Iran's first social novel, have also
been removed from textbooks, while the name of Sadegh Hedayat, one of Iran's
greatest writers of the 20th century, has been removed from a story by another
great 20th-century author, Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh Esfahani.

"When you live in a [value-based] system, to preserve its nature you choose
between two texts, the one that is closer to the beliefs and ideas of the
establishment," an official in charge of drafting literature textbooks at the
Education Ministry, Hossein Ghassempur Moghadam, told the daily Hamshahri in an
interview published on November 3.

In another interview published last week, Ghassempur Moghadam said the textbooks
have gone through many changes since 2015 and claimed no major literary work has
been removed.

However, he added that there was a need to make room for figures such as Mohsen
Hojaji, an Iranian militant who was reportedly beheaded by members of the
extremist Islamic State (IS) group in Syria in 2017.

Hojaji has been widely praised by Iranian officials, who have said he sacrificed
his life to keep Iran safe.

"We needed space to bring up Mohsen Hojaji's martyrdom," Ghassempur said, adding
that "it had priority" over celebrated 14th-century poet Hafez -- whose books of
poetry, often celebrating the joys of love and wine, are found in almost every
Iranian household -- and Saadi, also widely praised as one of Iran's greatest
classical poets.

Media reports said some of the works removed from the textbooks have been
replaced with other works by some of the same targeted poets and writers, while
others were replaced by the work of little-known poets endorsed by the
establishment for their revolutionary and Islamic credentials.

In interviews, Ghamssempur appeared to confirm the reports, saying for example
that Ebtehaj's poem was not "suitable" for textbooks and that another of his
poems that had been used also "didn't serve our purpose."

He said instead "a better poem" by deceased religious and Islamic revolutionary
poet Salman Harati was added to textbooks.

Sadegh HedayatOne of Iran's greatest 20th-century writers

Saeed Paivandi, a Paris-based professor of sociology who has written extensively
about Iran's education system, says the reported changes are aimed at the
further "Islamization" of Iran's education system, which has been encouraged by
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"Officials believe that in order to attract the younger generation they must
increase the intensity of their religious and ideological propaganda in
schools," Paivandi told RFE/RL.

"They think that a large proportion of young people are turning away from
religion and government ideology because of the weakness of propaganda in the
education system and the mass media," he added.

He also said students are often taught material that has "little literary value"
and that the reported changes are likely to increase the volume of such content.

"For example, the lives of martyrs, religious or political figures favored by
the government, or propaganda texts such as the life of a Christian girl who has
changed her religion and become a Muslim," he said.

Tehran-based poet Hafez Musavi told RFE/RL's Radio Farda that the changes are
yet another step in the wrong direction.

"This is the policy of the elimination of others.... But as we've seen in the
past, it's a failed policy," Musavi said.

"By eliminating [these names] from textbooks, [authorities] won't manage to
erase them from Persian literature and the memory of our people."

Works by several prominent writers and poets, such as Forough Farokhzad,
regarded by many as Iran's most important female poet, or the influential Ahmad
Shamlou, who wrote about state repression, have been missing from Iran's
textbooks for years. Yet they remain highly popular among many Iranians.

"The past 40 years have demonstrated that our young generation finds ways to
access this type of literature and read it," Musavi said.

Influential poet Ahmad Shamlou

Many, including prominent writer and researcher Bahaodin Khoramshahi, suggest
that the move is likely to damage Iran's cultural identity.

"If we take away [even] this half-baked opportunity from our students to become
acquainted with old literature, there's no hope that they would try to learn
more about such masterpieces anymore," Khoramshahi was quoted as saying by
Iranian media.